Becoming a Killer
by Countess of Ole
Summary: What drove Jackson Rippner to go into the assassination business in the first place? COMPLETE!
1. Introduction

All right. Here's my first stab at a Red Eye fic. If it stinks bare with me. If it doesn't, enjoy. In either case tell me in review form. As for the story itself, in the movie, Jackson gives pretty much no information on his own personal life, leaving a lot of room for people like me to play around and give him a customized bio. Hope you like it, and that it doesn't seem stupid or anything. Now for the disclaimer:

I hereby claim that Jackson Rippner belongs to Dreamworks and is not a product of my own mind. I also hereby give the responsibility of the inspiration for this story to the Dreamworks film, Red Eye (duh). Now that we've got all of this boringness out of the way, time to get on to the interesting stuff.

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Once, in the not too distant past, there was a family of four, living in a remote city in a secluded house. The names of the parents were Greg and Sandra Rippner and they were the proud parents of two boys, the older of which they called Jack (but he preferred to be called Jackson), and the younger was Richard. They were separated by five years, but in spite of this age difference, they were surprisingly close. 

This was not a happy family by any definition of the term. Greg Rippner had a terrible temper and was prone to unprovoked fits of rage, which he would brash out on his wife and children. Sandra was often abused, and resultingly, she became an alcoholic. She never defended Jackson and Richard as she was always too drunk. The two boys felt alone in the world, constantly receiving beatings that they didn't deserve.

Of this unhappy family, we are going to be following this story mainly from the older boy, Jackson's point of view. When we enter the story, Jackson is ten and Richard is five. Jackson hates his name. His classmates at school always made fun of him for it. He would be pushed around and taunted seemingly endlessly, and since he was a small boy without much muscular strength, there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. He would often wonder how the other boys could find so much entertainment about something so mundane as a person's name for so long, but somehow they did.

In spite of his misery at school, he preferred that to his homelife. He didn't live far from his school, and every day, he and his brother would walk home, taking as long as possible, and talking about many things. Perhaps it was these long walks and talks that made the Rippner brothers so close. However, eventually they would always come home to a messy house, fix themselves meager dinners and hide away in the one room they shared to do homework. When they arrived they were rarely greeted. Their father was always away at work and their mother was normally very intoxicated and lying on the couch in a semi-conscious state.

Sadly this was the best time of the day. When their father got home, he would always be angry and yelling. Richard would often ask Jackson why he was so angry all the time. Jackson would simply shrug. As far as he was concerned there was no reason for his father to be so upset, and he would never come right out and ask. That would result in a beating. His father was always angry about something at work, and would come home and continue to be angry about the messy house, and slap and yell at his mother about cleaning it and fixing dinner. Sometimes he'd even slap her until she was unconscious, but this didn't happen often. Then their father would come upstairs to their room and stand in the doorway like a big guard blocking a prisoner's escape, glare at them with his piercing blue eyes and demand why they didn't help their mother with the house. The boys would cower against the far wall, apologize and promise that next time they would help their mother. The father would say that wasn't good enough, call them useless, yell at them some more, and beat them. It hurt Jackson to be beaten, but it hurt him even more to watch his brother get beaten.

Jackson sometimes speculated that his father was constantly _searching_ for reasons to be angry. It was almost as if, Greg Rippner wasn't happy unless he was shouting at, berating, or beating someone. He was very afraid of his father. So was Richard. Though most of you will agree that this is not the way a family should be… that this is not how two young innocent children should live, they had to lead this terrible life anyway every day.

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So, what did you think? Love it? Hate it? Kindly review. 

As for the story itself, it's not always going to be this impersonal a narrative, this was just sort of an overview of the condition of his family, to give you a general idea of how he and his brother lived. Next chapter should be much more detailed. 


	2. A Family Ski trip

Here I am again, with another chapter. I really appreciated the reviews. Thanks, guys! Now for more!

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It was a Friday evening in late January when Greg Rippner came home in a very uncharacteristically good mood. The boys had finished their chores and were upstairs in their room playing Clue. Jackson looked up from his cards with a crooked smile on his face and opened his mouth to accuse Professor Plum of doing it in the Billiard Room with the Rope (and he would have been right) when the unmistakable wheeze of his father's car making its way up the driveway reached his ears.

"Oh no. Dad's home." He whispered, his blue eyes widening.

Richard, who had apparently not heard the car, had been staring fixedly at the cards he had clamped firmly in a small hand. Now he looked up, glanced at their closed door, and looked back at Jackson. Fear crept into his not quite as blue eyes.

"Does that mean we can't play anymore?" he asked in a tiny voice.

"Maybe if we push it under my bed, carefully so we don't knock off our pieces, we can come back to it at bedtime or something," he gave his brother a comforting smile, "Okay?"

The corners of Richard's mouth raised the tiniest bit, "Okay."

They did so, and shortly thereafter, Jackson heard the front door burst open. Greg Rippner was singing…_singing!_ Jackson was confused. He'd never heard his father sing before. In spite of his confusion it gave him some hope that tonight wouldn't be as bad as normal. That was definitely a good thing.

He heard the front door slam closed and his father's heavy army boots clump down the hallway toward the living room where Sandra Rippner was undoubtedly slumped over the couch drunk.

_Now he's going to start yelling at mom for never doing anything. And then he's going to start hurting her, then he's going to come up here and start hurting us._ He almost whimpered at the thought but stifled it in his throat. He wanted to be brave for Richard.

But he heard no yelling. In fact, what he heard was quite surprising. His father started spewing forth an endless stream of excited babbling. Jackson tried but he couldn't quite understand what his dad was saying. When his father stopped, he heard a muffled "what?" come from his mother, and in a slightly irritated voice his father said, "Just dress warmly and get ready." That much Jackson did understand. The heavy boots his father always wore to work clumped back down the hallway and made their noisy way up the stairs and down the hall that led to their room. Jackson tensed, and though he didn't notice at the time, his brother did too.

"Jack! Rich!" Greg Rippner called as he opened the door to their room and crouched down with his hands on his knees to be closer to head-level with his two boys on the floor.

They only stared at him.

"Guess what!" more silence, "We're going on a little vacation!"

Richard gasped and replied in an awed voice, "Really?"

"Yes! A skiing trip. And do you wanna know why?"

"Why?" they both asked in curious unison.

"Because your daddy's being considered for a promotion. That's why!" A huge grin spread across his face and he stood up straight again and started laughing. When he was finished and pulled together again he said, "So get your winter gear together, we're heading out tonight." With that, he left them alone again. No beating. No shouting. Just the declaration of a vacation. They could definitely live with that.

When the door was closed, Jackson and Richard looked at each other with giant, surprised eyes for a moment. The moment following that moment they were instantly up and getting every ounce of heavy winter clothing they owned together in one spot. Jackson helped Richard collect his stuff. Next they grabbed their toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, and some miscellaneous clothing, stuck it all into a bag they normally had stowed in their closet for such rare occasions and were ready to go.

Once everything was all set Richard looked at his brother with his nose all scrunched up in a very childish expression of bewilderment. "Jackson?" (Jackson had made his feelings about being called Jack clear to his little brother a long time ago)

He looked at his little brother, "Yeah?"

"What's the difference between a skiing trip and a reg'ler trip?"

Jackson laughed, "When you go skiing you get these big boards stuck to your feet and you slide down snowy hills on them. Sorta' like sledding except standing up."

"Oh…" Richard mused. "Have you ever gone skiing?"

"I think so but it was a long time ago," now it was his turn to scrunch his nose, "I don't really remember it much. I may have even been the same age as you when I skied."

"That _was _a long time ago."

The muffled voice of their father came from the master bedroom. "You boys ready yet?"

"Yes!" they both called immediately.

"Good!" their father responded in a pleased voice. They heard his heavy footsteps coming down the hall to their room again and once more the door opened with his tall, muscular figure in the doorway, silhouetted by the hall light immediately behind him. He came in a step or two, bent down to retrieve their bag and with it firmly in his grasp, straightened to leave again. Halfway through turning to the door, he paused and looked at them with his eerily blue eyes.

"Don't forget to bring a snack or something with you. It's going to be a long drive."

And a long drive it was! They started out on their trip a half an hour after Greg Rippner told them to bring snacks, and drove all night. The boys polished off their snacks pretty quickly and dozed most of the rest of the way. Their mother just sort of sat their in the passenger seat, staring blankly ahead with her bloodshot eyes, and their father did his duty by driving, drinking coffee to keep awake. The dawn was just starting to tug on the edges of the eastern horizon when they finally reached the mountain. The Rippners checked in and went to their cabin, number 15.

Greg went to the bedroom to take a much needed nap. Sandra joined him, starting to feel the unpleasant effects of a hangover coming on, and the boys stared out the window onto the slopes where they saw little black dots zig-zagging toward the bottom. Occasionally one would glide close enough for them to see what these skiers looked like more clearly. Indeed they did have long boards attached to their feet, but what confused Richard was that some had only one board on both feet and some had a board on each foot. These last people also seemed to be only ones who got to have poles. These differences confused Richard, so he did what he always did when something confused him. He asked Jackson.

"Jackson?"

"Hmm?" his brother responded sleepily.

"Why do some of them have two boards attached their feet and some of them only have one?"

"Because some people like to ski down the hill and other people like to snowboard down the hill."

"Snowboard?"

"Yeah, they're the ones with only one board."

"Why do the people who ski get those pole things and the people who snowboard don't?"

Jackson opened his mouth to respond but stopped and creased his brow, "I don't really know, but If we get lessons, I'll ask for you, if you want."

"Lessons?"

"Yeah, if I remember anything from when I last skied, it was hard. Lessons make it easier to learn without falling flat on our faces so much."

"Oh… it sure doesn't look hard."

"Well those people know what they're doing. See that person?" he pointed to someone who was going way too fast and wiped out in a cloud of snow. Richard thought that was funny.

"Yeah," he giggled.

"We're probably going to be looking like him a lot."

"He's funny," they watched in silence for a moment as the man tried to get up, fell back down, and eventually succeeded in making it the rest of the way down.

"Well, I'm going to sleep a little bit more, okay?" Jackson broke the silence.

"Okay."

Jackson went, curled up on the couch and fell asleep, leaving Richard to watch the skiers and snowboarders in silence.

Several hours later, at 10 a.m. the Rippners were putting on their newly rented skis. Greg was amazingly happy, and Sandra was amazingly sober. They almost seemed like a normal family. Jackson had finally figured out the mysteries of putting on his ski boots and skis and was now helping Richard put on his. Richard looked like a deep-sea diver, bundled up like the next Ice Age was coming. Not a speck of skin was showing. After Jackson discovered that if he stuck his skis in a V-shape with them coming together in the front, he was more likely to stay put and taught this little tidbit to Richard, their father asked them if they were ready.

"Are we going to have lessons, daddy?" Richard asked excitedly.

"Lessons? Where did you get a stupid idea like that?" he looked at Jackson vindictively for a second and then looked back at Richard, "Ski instructors cost money. And besides, you'll pick it up in no time! Race you to the top."

Greg gave a mighty push on his poles and went gliding off. Their mother shrugged and followed him. Jackson looked sympathetically at Richard.

"I guess we're not going to find out why we get poles and snowboard people don't."

Together Jackson and Richards discovered the basics of maneuvering with their ski-poles for themselves: how to go, how to stop, and hardest of all, how to get up when they fell over. Eventually they were brave enough to try the ski-lift and see how they'd do on a real slope. Jackson had a map and figured out which ones were the easy ones (green) and which ones were the hard ones (black). They went on a lift that led to a green one.

The getting scooped up by the lift was surprisingly easy. When they reached the top, however, that was a whole different matter. Jackson got his skis onto the snow in good formation and might even have made it for the first time, but Richard accidentally stuck one of his skis on top of Jackson's and furthermore used Jackson to push away from the lift, consequently sending Jackson into a graceless sprawl into the snow. Richard then proceeded to tangle up his own skis and fall. They both proceeded with the polite process of scuttling away from the ski-lift so other people could get off and not fall over them, and got up with great difficulty. Jackson skied over to Richard who looked at him with large, apologetic eyes shielded by huge ski-goggles.

"I'm sorry," he said from underneath a thick scarf that covered his face.

"It's okay, you're not hurt are you?"

Richard shook his head fervently then looked down the slope for the first time. He uttered a gasp looked back at Jackson and fell over again.

"That's _steep!_" he cried.

"I don't think it's as steep as it looks. Do you want to try?"

Richard looked down at the slope again, gulped, and returned his scared eyes to Jackson. He gave his head a brisk shake. Then their parents arrived on the ski-lifts and skied up to them.

"I thought I'd find you two chickens up here. So, what are you waiting for? Why don't you go?"

Richard looked at Greg, "I'm scared, daddy. The hill's really big."

"What are you talking about? This is the easiest hill here! I think you just need a little push." He grabbed the back of Richard's coat and started to push him onto the steeper area of the hill. Richard started whimpering, steadily getting louder.

"No, Dad!" Jackson cried. "I don't think he's ready to go down yet!"

"Greg, maybe we should get them lessons," Sandra said quietly. "I mean Richard's only five. Remember how bad Jackson was at skiing when he was five?"

"Yeah, but he got the hang of it. Richard can too."

"After falling over half a dozen times and nearly giving himself a concussion on that patch hard-packed snow," she said softer still.

"But he didn't. Now, Richard? Be brave and try not to waver your feet and you'll be fine." Greg shoved the boy hard, and Richard went shrieking down the hill a ways before coming to a very abrupt halt by utterly wiping out. Jackson gave his father a look that could kill (a look he would perfect later in life) and went down after his brother. He managed to stop relatively close to the limp, gasping figure of his brother sprawled out on the ground and edge over to him.

"I wanna go home," Richard whimpered from his place on the ground. He was crying,"I don't like skiing."

Jackson extended his hand and helped his brother up, "Well, you'll get used to it. It just takes a while. You want some advice, keep your skis in that V-shape I told you about earlier. You'll go a lot slower."

Rich nodded, sniffed and started down the hill at a snails pace with his skies in a very wide V. He looked at Jackson as he realized that he was going down and not falling and smiled, "Hey look! I'm doing it!"

"Yes, you are! Look at you!" Jackson smiled.

Greg skied down and stopped next to Jackson, watching his younger son go. "Well that's way too slow. You have to go faster than that." He put out a ski-pole and gave his son another mighty shove.

"No!" Jackson shouted.

Richard went soaring down the hill again, way beyond control until he and a snowboarder collided harshly. Jackson couldn't believe his eyes. The snowboarder plowed into him from the side and Richard's right knee clearly went beyond where the joint allowed. Eventually the ski popped off but the damage had already been done. The snowboarder's board left the snow and he went down on top of Richard. The two slid down the hill a few feet before coming to a stop. Richard was screaming. The snowboarder got off of the boy and looked around confusedly. Jackson looked at his father with utter rage. One could not fathom how much he wanted to hit his father with his pole again and again until he was dead for what he'd just done.

"How could you do that! He was finally getting it!" he shouted, tears threatening to come out of his own eyes.

"Don't you talk to me that way, Jack! You don't ever use that tone of voice with me!"

"Richard could be really hurt out there, _Dad!_ And it's _your_ fault!" He started toward where his screaming brother was laying.

"Jack! Don't you _dare_ use that tone of voice with me! I'm your father! You speak to me with respect!" his father was nearly in a rage.

Jackson stopped and turned around surprisingly nimbly for his lack of skiing experience. His eyes were blazing and for a moment you could see exactly what he would look like in the future. He looked just like his father.

"_Don't call me JACK!_ I _hate _my name! People call me Jack the Ripper all the time and push me around at school because of it! My name is Jackson! Don't ever call me _Jack_ again!" he turned around and continued down the hill.

His father looked surprised then angry again, "Don't think you won't be punished for this, boy!"

"I don't care!" He called back and didn't stop. His brother deserved more of his attention than his father.

Amazingly enough, his father never called him Jack again after that day.

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All right. What did you think. I know, this chapter was a bit long, but other than that how'd you like it? Review please.  


	3. A Minor Change of Heart

Thanks once again for the reviews, they make me all warm and fuzzy inside. :) Personally, this is the fastest I've ever written three chapters in a row of anything, fan fiction or original fiction. But then… I _really_ like Red Eye. But you're not interested in any of that. You want story. And story you shall get!

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Jackson came to a sliding halt a few feet uphill of his screaming brother and the snowboarder. The good news was the snowboarder finally seemed to be getting over his initial shock. The bad news was that Jackson could clearly see how broken his brother's right leg was. It was as if his knee was on backward.Jackson's face went completely ashen, and he felt like he was going to vomit. The snowboarder's awareness came back in full and he pulled off Richard's left ski and looked around for the right one. It was nowhere to be found. He put the ski aside and looked at Jackson.

"Do you know this boy?"

At first he couldn't speak. He was afraid that if he opened his mouth words weren't going to be the first thing that came out, but eventually he did in a faint half-whisper, "He's my brother."

"Oh, man, I'm really sorry," the man looked at Richard again whose screams were diminishing, "Can you take off your skis and give them to me?"

"What?" Jackson couldn't imagine why this man could possibly need his skis to help his brother.

"To help get personnel over here. I need a pair of skis."

Still confused and very shocked, Jackson numbly stomped on the latches that held the skis to his feet, sat down by his brother's side and handed the man his skis. The snowboarder went out a couple feet closer to the middle of the slope and placed Jackson's skis in an X-shape. Jackson was watching. He was suddenly aware that his father was still standing there, watching him, glaring at him. When he looked up and met his father's disconcerting blue eyes with his own, he realized that his father didn't scare him anymore. That fear had been replaced by something else… a sinister hatred. He internally vowed that he would pay his father back for Richard. He began plotting how he could do this, what he should do.

_You break one of his legs. I'll break both of yours. Everything you do to him, I will give to you double. You'll see. Maybe not immediately, but you wait… you see. I will repay. I promise you, and I _always _keep my promises._

He was suddenly yanked out of his dark thoughts when an unfamiliar voice seemed to be asking him something. He looked at the source of the voice and realized that three medics had arrived. He also noticed that his brother had gone unconscious and was being bundled into firmly into a sled by two of the paramedics. He stood up and looked back at the place his father had been, but he was no longer there. Gone down the rest of the way so you could continue on having fun, Jackson guessed. _I bet he doesn't care in the slightest bit._ This thought simply served to feed his rage burning inside him. Angry tears started to cloud his vision. He tried to blink them away and looked back at the paramedic and realized he hadn't heard a word of what the man had said.

"What?"

"I said, do you know where your mom and dad are? We need to tell them what has happened to your brother." Jackson shrugged. "All right, are you staying at one of our cabins or…?"

"Yes. Number fifteen."

"All right. What's your brother's name?"

"Richard," _and if you say 'all right' one more time I'll be tempted to strangle you with your scarf. This is not all right. This is the opposite of all right._

The paramedic paused a moment as if Jackson was supposed to say more then said, "Last name?"

"Rippner."

Two of the paramedics who were obviously having a good day snickered at each other quietly. Jackson could just hear it now, "Richard Rippner? What a name!" even though neither of them said anything. He looked at them angrily with his piercing blue eyes. It didn't take long before they noticed. They both looked down. Later they might talk about him over coffee, referencing him as the creepy kid whose brother broke his leg. Jackson didn't care. Did he creep them out? Good. They deserved it.

"All right," Jackson flinched and looked back at the main paramedic, "Do you want us to take you to your cabin or do you want to keep skiing?"

Jackson was fairly surprised by this question. How could he want to keep skiing knowing what had happened to his brother? "Take me to the lodge."

"You sure?"

"No, he's not going back to the lodge. He's going to keep skiing," Greg startled Jackson in his sudden and very unwelcome appearance. The paramedic looked up at Mr. Rippner.

"And you are?"

"Greg Rippner, the boy's father."

"Ah. Well your son, Richard, is going to be taken to the emergency room of the nearest hospital, if you'd like to accompany him, we'll be more than glad to see your other child safely back to the lodge."

"Generous offer, but I think we've got all bases covered. My wife, Sandra," he motioned to the silent figure hiding behind Greg, "will go with Richard to the emergency room and Jackson and I will hit the slopes a couple times more." He walked up right next to Jackson and stuck an arm around his shoulders.

The man looked perplexed but continued, "Are you sure?"

"Positive. _Jackson_ and I will have a good time, won't we, son?" he leered down at Jackson.

_Go ahead. Hit me. Beat me. It'll only give me more reason to hate you. Who knows? I might even get a bit of repaying in tonight._ He hid these thoughts expertly and put a sweet grin on his face looking up at his father, "Yes, we will, dad."

There was something in his eyes that snatched the leering expression off of Greg's face. The other two paramedics stood up on their skis and nodded to the third one.

"They're ready," said the paramedic.

Greg looked back at his wife. "Will you ski the rest of the way down with these good people?" She nodded in acquiescence, and a moment later, she, the three medics, and Richard were on their way down the hill to the hospital.

Greg looked down at his son. Jackson was still looking at him with that same sweet grin and the same unnamable something in his eyes. Greg slid a bit further down, blocking Jackson off from the main part of the slope and slapped him hard. Jackson's head whipped to the right; a large red mark already forming on his left cheek. He slowly brought his head around to face his father again. He was still smiling, but any semblance of sweetness had left it. Greg was a bit unnerved. _This is the face of the devil_, he thought and slid the boy's skis toward him.

"Come on son. We have things to discuss back at the cabin."

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Not as long as the last chapter but not as short as the introduction. What did you think? Please review. :) 


	4. A Time for Punishment

Thanks for the wonderful reviews!  
Another update. I tell you, if I thought that three was good for me, four chapters all coming out within a week is definitely a personal record. And on to the story!

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The two skied to the bottom of the hill in complete silence. Both father and son had an extreme lack of happiness etched into his visage. They took off their skis when they reached the bottom and trudged wordlessly in the direction of their cabin. Jackson found it particularly difficult to walk in the large, impeding boots, which only served to frustrate him.

When they reached the cabin, Greg noticed with discernable satisfaction that cabins fourteen and sixteen appeared to be deserted. The occupants were most likely out hitting the slopes and actually having a good vacation. _Perfect._ No one would be around to hear anything if, by any chance, his son were to, say, start screaming. A positively wicked smile formed on Greg's face. _Absolutely perfect._ He opened and reached into one of his zippered pockets and produced the key to the house. He didn't notice that Jackson also had realized that the neighboring cabins were empty.

He opened the door and stood aside, holding his hand out to the door and leering at Jackson. _After you,_ that smile said, _I dare you._ Jackson wasn't fazed; he walked through the door without a hint of the fearful cowardice to which his father had become accustomed. His father came in and slammed the door behind him.

"What's wrong with you, boy?" he asked in a sinisterly soft voice, "Why do you bring this upon yourself? There was no reason for you to shout at me," his voice was growing steadily louder, and his hands were working to undo his belt, "there was no reason for you to scoff at me, turn your back on me, and show me such utter _disrespect!"_ he spat this last word out with vehemence.

_No reason? No reason! _A thousand different versions of rage flood into Jackson's mind, making his face hot, and bringing tears to his eyes. _You only broke the only person in the world I care about's leg. You've only been beating on us since either of us can remember to get out some stupid rage that isn't our fault, but no! There's no reason to turn my back on you. _How he wished that he could say those words. In fact he would have, but his throat had clenched shut in the onslaught of his anger, and he could only stand there, looking with putrid hatred at his father, tears slowly welling up until they oozed over the threshold and trickled down his face. His cold eyes (seeming bluer than ever now that the whites had turned red to contrast the irises) were simply drilling into his father's face. They were so much like Greg's.

"Are you going to cry now?" his father, having succeeded in undoing the buckle, yanked his belt from his waist and held it menacingly in one hand.

Jackson shook his head slowly.

"Aw… How courageous, but it's complete bull. The tears are running down your face as I speak," he taunted him, trying to get a response out of him, dig at a weak spot, do anything to lessen or even erase the intensity with which his son was looking at him. But Jackson only continued to glare at his father. "Not very talkative now, are you? Fine, I don't care," he gestured vaguely with his left hand toward the couch. "Lie down. Face down."

Jackson continued to stare defiantly at his father.

This did it. His father's rage snapped and he flung the buckle end of the belt at Jackson, lashing him straight across the face. Jackson hadn't been prepared for that; he gave a choked cry of pain, fell to the floor and held a hand to the fresh cut on his already red cheek. His father didn't waste a second and lunged forward at the boy, grabbing him by the hair, and yanking his head up so the boy would look him in the eye.

"I said get on the couch! Now do it!" he forced the boy to his feet and flung him by his head towards the couch.

Jackson stumbled forward quickly, desperately trying to regain some control of his movement but only ended up barking his shins on the tiny coffee table before landing headlong on the couch, ironically in the position his father had wanted him in.

He tried to get up, but his father was on top of him in no time, pushing his face deeper into the cushions while pulling his shirt up to his back. Jackson uttered a few muffled cries, and tried to unearth his head, lashing out with his arms. He could hardly breathe. Then he became aware of a sharp pain in the small of his back. It repeated itself over and over again. The pain was immense, and his entire body became rigid. He tried to keep himself from screaming; he knew that if he started, he likely wouldn't be able to stop. With each passing blow, the pressure on the back of his head seemed to grow. Time seemed immeasurable. Was it ever going to end?

His father was using the end with the buckle. He was beating on his boy mercilessly, engulfed by the rage that had plagued his family through him for so many years. To him it seemed like had only been beating him for a few seconds or so. To Jackson, it seemed like an eternity of blow after blinding blow. Tears were streaming out of his eyes and soaking into the suffocating cushion. Finally the frequency of the blows became lower and lower as either the rage became less immediate, his father got tired, or a combination of the two. Finally they stopped altogether and the pressure of his father's hand left his head. He pulled his head weakly up and rested on the uninjured right side of his face which faced him right into the back of the couch and away from his father. He gasped in a lungful of air and slowly let it out in a shaky, ragged exhale, silently groaning in agony as he did so.

Greg pulled Jackson's shirt down over the fresh, oozing welts on his back, causing a stinging pain. Jackson felt the cushions shift as the weight of his father left the couch. He could feel his father looming over him, looking down at him, trying to decide what to do next.

Never one for teaching lessons in punishment he simply went to the kitchenette and left his son alone and hurt on the couch. He took several more ragged breaths then pulled himself painfully to a sitting position and stopped to catch his breath again. He looked angrily at his father, whose back was toward him as the man washed his hands in the kitchenette's sink. 'I hate you,' he whispered soundlessly, shuddering with anger as more tears trickled down his streaked face, 'I hate you so much.'

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I know, it got a little violent, but it's for things like that that I rated this T. Ya know, just to be safe. Review please:) 


	5. A Recovery and a Reunion

Another chapter! And to answer your question, Mini Nicka, no, this is not going to become a J/L. According to the rough outline I have in my head, Lisa's not really going to be inthis storyat all. Sorry. I really hope I haven't disappointed anyone.

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The wounded boy sat on the couch for the longest of times. His gaze was forward and down, a look of mingled pain and hatred carved into his face. His eyes were focusing on a tiny piece of black fluff on the tan carpet, but he wasn't really seeing the fuzz. He was deep in the recesses of his own mind. If you were to set foot into his mind at that moment, you'd most likely go insane within mere seconds. The thoughts were so dark and cruel, so hateful and vengeful, and most of all, they were so intense. These were not the thoughts of a ten-year-old, or at least, not the thoughts a ten-year-old should have. Every once in a while, he would break his focus on the black fuzz and glance at his father who was laying in the bed of the adjoining room, dozing as if nothing had happened. He would frown, the crease between his eyebrows would deepen, and his eyes would return to the little fluff-ball. One of the most coherent thoughts floating through his head was.

Steadily the minor discomfort that had started out as a tiny whisper in the back of his mind grew to become cramps in his ankles, and he realized that he never took off his ski-boots. He'd taken off his jacket as soon as he'd entered the cabin, and it was lying in a heap on the floor near the door. But his boots had been forgotten and were causing his ankles to ache. He leaned forward over his knees to take them off, instantly wishing he hadn't. His battered back protested, and he gritted his teeth as he proceeded with the tenuous process of unbuckling the ski boots and the even harder process of prying them off of his feet. Despite the pain he was in, when he got those boots off, he couldn't help but to let out a huge sigh of relief.

He became aware of how tired he was and slowly, stiffly lowered himself down on his stomach until he was lying full-length on the couch. His mind registered with some resentment that he was in the exact position he had been in before when his cheek touched the damp spot his tears had made. He dozed for a little bit.

He jerked fully awake when his coat was thrown onto his head. His eyes flew wide open, and the sleep-adrenaline gushed into his veins, making him extremely jumpy. He couldn't see and something was making it hard for him to breathe. He realized that something was on his head and it felt suspiciously like his coat. He reached for it, pulled it off, and saw that it was, in fact, his coat. He gathered his arms underneath of himself and painfully propped himself on his elbows so he could look around more easily. His father was standing, a tall silhouette, right in front of him. Jackson looked at him, looked at the coat still in his hand, and looked back at his father. Either he missed something, or he still wasn't quite awake because he was confused.

"Put it on," his father said, "and find your regular shoes. We're going to the hospital."

"Hospital…?" Jackson asked groggily, then everything clicked back into place. An exalted joy and foreboding dread swept over him. "We're going to see Richard?"

"Yes. And while you're getting ready, do something about your face," with that, his father walked off.

Jackson creased his brow, his face? What the heck was wrong with his face? He brought his hand up to touch the left side of his face and was almost surprised to feel not smooth skin but a lovely scab. There was something else different about that side of his face too, but he couldn't quite tell what it was. He decided to get up and try out how he'd do on his feet. Dizziness, blinding brown dots, and a disconcerting tingly feeling flashed through him as his blood rushed to his head. He walked shakily to the little bathroom and got a good look of himself in the mirror.

He looked terrible.

His eyes were all red and moist. Tearstains streaked his cheeks. His dark hair was a mass of disorder on his head. His left cheek was a deep shade of purplish blue and concentrated in the middle of this nasty bruise, the cut on his cheek had hardened into the lovely scab his fingers had already explored. He wasn't exactly sure _what_ he was supposed to do about his face, but he knew what else was different about it now. It was a little swollen.

He turned on the faucet, dipped his slender hands into the running water and ran his wetted fingers back through his hair in a good attempt to make it look a bit better. He pulled roughly a thousand tissues out of the little box on the toilet's septic tank, moistened them and used them to cool off his face, rinse off his cheek-wound and get rid of the tearstains. Afterwards he felt considerably better.

The trip to the hospital was short and quiet.

As Jackson walked through the hospital hallways toward his brother's room, tension in his every muscle mounted. He couldn't wait to see his brother again, but in a way he was afraid of what he might see. He didn't want to see his brother hurt. Seeing his brother in a weakened state would be almost unbearable. He and his father finally reached the doorway. They walked through and Jackson's face dropped.

His brother looked worse than Jackson's worst fears. His brother was asleep, but any semblance of color had left the boy's face. An IV tube was sticking out of one of Richard's tiny little hands, and his leg was in a cast that seemed simply too huge for him. In fact, the whole bed made him seem so tiny… so vulnerable… Jackson tried, but couldn't hold back the tears that welled up in his eyes. He went up to his brother's bed and held the hand without the tube in both of his own, silently sobbing. Then it happened. Something in his mind that had been hyper extending in the last several hours or so finally cracked a little.

_Dad will pay. No one that does this to someone so little, so vulnerable and so innocent as Richard, deserves to live. I will make him suffer… but not now. I can't do anything now. What happened back at the cabin proved that. If I try now, I'll only succeed in getting another whipping or worse. No… I'll wait… I'll cooperate with him. Make him think he's won this round. Then, when I'm old enough… and strong enough… I'll get him back when he's least expecting it. And _that_ is a promise. Dad will pay._

He came back into reality when Richard's little blue-grey eyes fluttered weakly opened and looked up at him drearily. When they seemed to register who they were seeing, Richard's whole face lit up.

"Jackson! You're here!" the boy said joyfully.

Jackson couldn't help but to smile, the tears glistened in his eyes, "Yes, I am."

They embraced each other tightly, as well as they could with Richard stuck in the bed, and Jackson finally let it all out in his tears. Through thick and thin, pain or joy, sorrow or happiness, he still had his brother. He didn't care that his back was hurting. He loved his brother more than anything else on the entire planet.

And heaven help anyone who tried to take Richard away from him.

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Yes, yes, I realize the story's moving kinda slow. I plan to remedy that. Next chapter should be much more fast-pace and have more action (yay!). Please review! 


	6. A Little Fight

Sorry. I took a bit longer to get this one written, but better late than never I always say (and in my case it normally _is_ late). On we go!

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Jackson never forgot what happened on that ski trip. His photographic memory never allowed even the slightest detail to blur out of focus in his memory's eye. His heart broke when he'd remember the unnatural way that Richard's leg was bent as he lay on the snow slowly fading to unconsciousness. But most of all, he would never forget the promise he had made… to his father… to himself. He would fulfill that promise. He had waited seven years since making that promise, slowly getting stronger, preparing for the day of repayment… when the boys could live free of their father's terrorization.

In the seven years since the ski trip, Jackson and Richard Rippner had changed a lot. Jackson was now a boy of seventeen in his junior year of high school, as thin as a toothpick, and his face had made its journey from the soft, round face of a ten-year-old to the thin face of a boy well on his way to becoming a man. Richard was twelve years old and _very _smart for his age. He always had his reddish-brown hair combed back and his dull, grey-blue eyes were always hidden behind glasses. More often than not, he would be found with his nose buried in some book. However, he had no manner of physical strength and took after Jackson in the toothpick factor. Though he was only twelve and his birthday was beyond the cut-off date for most schools, his intelligence was undeniable and it would have been a sin to hold him back. He was a twelve year-old eighth grader. Jackson was proud of his brother. Five years younger but only three grades lower. Howe often does that happen?

Now the school the Rippner brothers attended, like many school, had its society of bullies, and as in every bully society, it had its hierarchy. Bob Thompson was among the most feared and had the most power during lunch. Rumor had it that he had never yet had to pay for his lunch with his own money. Ian Schnobb was known for the fantastic jobs he would do in beating people up. He was big, slow, and stupid, but he knew how to put someone in the hospital in a jiffy. A new bully had come to plague the school this year. A particularly burly senior named Harold Borden, who was roughly the size of an ox had quickly taken the role of "head bully". He demanded the respect of every other bully on campus… even Thompson and Schnobb.

They picked on the Rippner brothers a lot at school. Despite Jackson's exercise, he still was not a terribly strong boy, and though he wasn't particularly short, many of the boys far surpassed him in height. They lorded this over him all the time during lunch and after school. Something about him sort of frightened them, but their overfed confidence kept them from stopping tormenting Jackson and his brother after school. Richard was even easier prey. Jackson had a strong will, but Richard was as pliable as soft rubber. He could be forced to do almost anything if the proper amount of threat was put behind it. Jackson would always stick up for him though and somehow would get him out of such situations. The bullies soon realized that though Jackson Rippner would put up with just about any crap they could throw at him, he would not let them touch his brother. They often wondered why he was so protective of the little geek.

One day in early November of Jackson's junior year, the boys were walking home. Richard was quite the sight. So many books were piled into his thin little arms that Jackson was surprised they didn't all just explode out of his brother's grip. His backpack bulged out far behind him, and somehow he managed to hold his lunchbox. It dangled loosely by its handle from the pinky of his left hand. It almost seemed that Richard felt that if he didn't carry everything with him at all times, he would fail the school year. Jackson's load was not so heavy. He had a notebook flipped up under his left arm and his lunch box hung from the same hand, leaving his right hand free to do whatever needed to be done.

Richard's leg had healed fairly nicely, but every once in a while, on gloomy days like today, his knee would throb, and a minor limp would make its appearance in his walk. Jackson noticed this with quiet dismay. A twinge pinched his heart and anger flared up from his gut, temporarily clouding his vision, but he gained control over his emotions again, and his anger once more was bottled up in the place where he held it in store.

They were walking in a fenced back-alley. Brown leaves carpeted the ground, turning their footsteps into loud, shuffling crunches. Tall trees reached into the sky overhead, the branches mostly bare save for a few curled leaves clinging desperately to the limbs on withered stems.

Then Jackson became conscious of leaves being crunched behind them and on the other side of the fence. He turned around quickly. Richard looked at the fence and saw a big shape blocking some of the light that would have come through between the slats that hadn't been there a short time ago. What Jackson saw was Harold Borden standing in a manner so as to block their exit from the alley in that direction. His right-hand man, Thompson was standing beside and a little behind him. That was when Schnobb and another guy scuttled from behind the fence to block their other exit. Borden smiled sinisterly at the trapped brothers.

"What do you want, Borden?" Jackson asked in his soft, deep voice.

"Well, any money you two might have would be a good start," Borden replied.

Richard, who had noticed that they were trapped and was looking at the much older, bigger boys with eyes that were big even without the slight magnifying effect of the lenses to his glasses. He instantly fumbled in his pocket for a small wad of one dollar bills, and gave it to Thompson who had stepped forward to collect the offerings. Jackson remained motionless, his blinding blue eyes boring into Borden.

"I don't have any money," he said calmly. "I only bring enough for lunch."

"Oh, well that's a shame isn't it? Ah well… the money was only a secondary thing anyway."

"Wh-what do you mean?" Richard asked, starting to panic. He tugged on Jackson's sleeve and whispered, "What do they mean, Jackson?"

"What he means is that we wouldn't go through all the trouble of cornering you little brats just so that we could collect a couple bucks," pipes up Thompson. "We aim to have ourselves a little fun."

"Yeheheah…" giggled Schnobb stupidly and pounded his fist into his open hand.

"So," Borden said, cracking his knuckles, "Who's first?"

"Aww, Harry," Schnobb whined, "Why do we always have to do 'em one at a time? There are four of us and two of them. We can take 'em both at once."

Borden rolled his eyes, "Because, you idiot, it's more fun to make one watch while the other gets beat up and then vice-versa."

"But I wanna beat 'em up now," Schnobb persisted.

"Fine," Borden said flippantly raising a hand, "go ahead."

The boys, who had been watching this interaction, Jackson disgusted, Richard afraid, were now attacked with ferocity. Thompson grabbed Jackson and held the now kicking boy in front of Borden in a bear-hug. Borden put up a guard and started hitting him. Jackson writhed, trying to get free and contorting against the blows, and he saw as the bully who had been next to Schnobb bore down on his brother and held him (in much the same manner as Jackson himself was being held) in front of Schnobb. The behemoth began pouring punches down on his little brother, the first of which broke his glasses.

Rage dumped a vat of adrenaline into Jackson's bloodstream. He screamed in combined fury and pain as Borden's hardened left knuckles connected with his nose, bloodying it. He faced the bully, his eyes positively burning, tears of rage beginning to well up in his eyes. There was a madness in his eyes… one that caused Borden to falter a little before striking Jackson in the stomach. He could hear his brother getting hurt. He wouldn't let these thugs hurt his brother. He lashed out one of his legs and kicked Borden right in the groin. The older boy was about to land another fist on Jackson's face but his fist to a sharp turn downward as he doubled over. Jackson used this opportunity to lash out again and kick Borden in the face. He succeeded, and he hit him _hard._ Borden went down hard on his back, out cold.

"Hey!" protested Thompson as he saw in dismay what Jackson was doing. Acting quickly, he raised one of his arms until it was firmly around Jackson's neck. He tightened and flexed both arms, squeezing the air out of him. Jackson gasped and was quickly cut off when the grip around his neck tightened. He brought his free hand up, and instead of grabbing at Thompson's arm, he grabbed the bully's shaggy hair and started yanking for all he was worth, gagging all the while. Thompson grunted but didn't let loose. Jackson worked his other hand free and started clawing at Thompson's face and kicking his feet behind him, striking the bully's shins.

"Ow! You bastard! Stop it!" Thompson arched his back and lifted Jackson till his feet no longer touched the ground. This made it that much harder to catch any fleeing breath of air. Finally Jackson got Thompson's nose in a relatively good hold and started pulling it in erratic directions. The boy screamed and let go of Jackson who tumbled to the ground, gasping in ragged gulps of air, getting to his feet and proceeding to grab Thompson's head and ramming it into the fence. Blood splattered from his fractured skull, and he slumped to the ground, unconscious.

He turned his attention to the other group. Schnobb didn't even notice that Borden and Thompson had been taken out. Richard wasn't in good condition though, bruised and bloodied. Jackson's rage doubled, his eyes zoned in on Schnobb. He yelled and sprinted up behind him. Just before he collided with the much larger boy, he sprung up into the air and landed squarely on Schnobb's back. Schnobb gave out a cry of surprise and stopped beating up Richard, reaching instead for the new burden on his shoulders and back. Jackson grabbed the bully's head, wrapping one arm around his thick neck, half to strangle him, and half simply to stay on his back. With the other hand, he started grabbing fistfuls of hair and ripping them out of the bully's head. Schnobb screamed. Apparently he wasn't expecting this. The other bully, the one holding Jackson's brother, could only stand there with his mouth open in shock. This was definitely new.

One of Schnobb's hands went to the long, slender arm wrapped around his neck and the other was reaching up, trying to get a purchase on the raging boy's head. He couldn't believe what was happening. How did he get away from Borden and Thompson? Black spots started to swarm across his field of vision and he realized the little devil must be cutting off his blood flow. He got a firm hold in Jackson's hair, held his head and bashed the back of his own head into Jackson's face.

He cried out and lost all grip on Schnobb, falling to the leaf-ridden ground. He was amazed at how much that head-butt hurt! The behemoth turned around and started toward him. Jackson kicked up at him and got him in the solar plexus. All the wind left Schnobb's lungs in a huge whoosh. Schnobb doubled onto his hands and knees trying to regain his breath. Jackson got to his feet, grabbed Schnobb's head and lowered himself so he was right next to his ear.

"_This is what happens to people who hurt my brother!_" he whispered fiercly.

He wrapped his other hand around and grabbed the far side of Schnobb's chin, wrenching Schnobb's head around until there came a sickening crack from his neck and Schnobb's wide, surprised eyes met Jackson's cold blue ones. Schnobb's body went completely limp, his mouth gaped open as he raggedly and unsuccessfully tried to gasp in air. Jackson let the bully's head fall limply to the ground, stood upright, and watched as the shaking chest cavern of the behemoth stopped moving with absolutely no expression on his face. He turned and looked at the bully who was still holding his brother, dumbfounded. He took several slow deliberate steps toward the scared bully.

The other boy's eyes flicked to the body of Schnobb, whose head was turned at a gruesome angle from his body; it almost looked like it was on backwards. He looked back at the oncoming boy, whose eyes almost seemed to be glowing with an insane fury. Did he just kill Schnobb? The look on that Rippner boy's face made it seem very probable. And he was next. He was holding Richard more as a barrier between him and Jackson now. He backed up a few steps, shoved Richard toward Jackson and ran away. Jackson rushed forward and caught his brother before he could fall. He watched the other beast run away with cold, pitiless eyes.

His expression changed very rapidly from heartless to loving as he looked at his brother. His brother looked back at him, squinting a little without his glasses. They embraced again, and when they pulled out of it, Richard looked down at the lifeless body of Schnobb.

"Is he dead?" he asked softly.

Jackson looked at the wide-open eyes and mouth and made the safe assumption, "I think so." Now that the initial fury was over, and his brother was safe again, he could hardly believe what he had just done.

"How about them?" he glanced over at Thompson and Borden. Thompson was gaining a nice big bloody spot around his head, but looked to be still breathing. Borden was already starting to stir. All things considered, he got off pretty lucky.

"They're alive, but we should go. He looks like he's going to wake up soon," Jackson glanced at Borden, "We'll let him take care of his friends," he looked back at Richard, "Where are your glasses?"

"I don't know, but they're definitely broken."

"Oh… that's not good," Jackson said, thinking of how his deplorable father will probably be too angry at Richard for these thugs destroying his glasses.

Richard looked at Schnobb again. "You killed him," he stated, clearly in shock.

Jackson took a shaky breath and said, "Yes, I did."

"Do you realize what dad would do if he found out about this?"

"I have a good idea."

"I won't tell him, but please, Jackson. Don't do that again. I don't want you to do something that'll get you arrested, or worse yet, put yourself in a position where you might get killed. Especially not on my account… okay?"

Jackson couldn't meet his eyes. He'd made a promise on the ski-slopes. His father had done several things since, and Jackson had kept a tally on them all. He could not lie to Richard. Finally he met Richard's pleading grayish blue eyes.

"I guarantee nothing."

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This chapter turned out to be longer than I thought… but it has more action so hopefully you didn't get bored from it. Please, review! 


	7. An Alarming Awakening

Well, you know the drill by now. Yet another chapter!

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He opened his eyes and instantly wished he hadn't. He was facing straight up at the glaring grey sky. He squinted and raised his head to try to figure out where he was. A sharp pain shot directly to the center of his brain and he dropped his head to the ground again, groaning. What happened? He couldn't seem to remember exactly what _had_ happened. He and his friends had just been getting to the good part of having fun with the two Rippner boys… he remembered that. How did he get to this state? And where were his goons? He rolled over onto his side, holding his head, and slowly got up. He looked around. This looked like the place where he had jumped the Rippner brothers all right. His eyes landed on Bob lying face down in the leaves by the fence. He snorted a brief laugh and walked over to his right-hand goon.

"Okay, Thompson!" he nudged him in the side with his foot, "Rise and shine!" Bob didn't so much as stir. "Hey! Get up!" That was when he spotted the large amount of drying blood covering the leaves around Thompson's head. The jeering smile left his face in an instant and he crouched down and rolled Bob over. His mouth dropped open and his eyes went wide. There was a huge gash on the left side of Thompson's forehead; Harold could even see some bone sticking out of the wound. Blood was smeared all over Bob's face, and his dark, shaggy hair was sticking in his wound. What did that Rippner freak _do_? They had called him Jack the Ripper a lot because of his name, but they never would have guessed he could actually do anything like this.

Thompson gasped, making Harold jump and his heart race. Thompson's blue-green eyes fluttered wide open. It took a few moments for the enormous pain in his head to register. In those few moments, he only looked at Borden with wide, confused eyes.

He opened his mouth and said weakly, "What happened?" But even if Borden had answered his question, he wouldn't have paid attention to it, because it was immediately after asking that the pain struck… and hard.

He groaned, and Borden slowly backed away, terrified as his groans turned into screams. Thompson raised a hand to his head, and drew it back to look at it. When he saw how covered his hand was with his own blood, his eyes widened and his screams grew even more. Borden looked around, starting to feel panic tugging on his emotions. _Panic? That Jackson Rippner is causing you to start panicking? Can't be. This must be a dream?_ He tried to find something that would prove the unreality of this nightmare. Instead, he found the heap of Ian Schnobb on the ground ten or fifteen feet away, lying on his back. He started walking numbly toward his mammoth of a friend.

"_Harold!_" Thompson shrieked almost incoherently,"_Help me! Ohhh, please help me!_"

Borden didn't seem to hear him. He continued to walk toward Schnobb. The flesh of the big guy was too grey… flies were hovering around him. It was only when he was a few steps away that he suddenly realized that Ian was not lying on his back. But that his head was twisted around backward. Harold gave a short scream, and backed away quickly, stumbling over something and falling down on his hindquarters. His face turned an ashy white, and he turned and vomited. Thompson's screams turned to sobs.

"Help me, Harold, please…" he whimpered, "My head hurts real bad."

Harold couldn't believe what was happening. Schnobb? Dead? And the Rippner brothers killed him? The world seemed to be shutting in around him. He felt like he was going to faint. The sky seemed ominously oppressive. He managed not to faint, but instead ran up the alley to the sidewalk and started screaming for help. Thompson watched him go with terrified eyes.

"No! Don't leave me! Harold! Aghhhhh!" He put his hand up to his head and dropped his head down into the leaves and continued moaning over his cracked open skull.

People passing by on the sidewalks gave Harold a wide berth as they passed him. His eyes were wide, he was pale and he had the residue of vomit on the corners of his mouth and chin. Frankly, he looked insane.

"Help! I need help! Somebody!" he cried to anyone who would listen. Finally, a group of men, who had been out to watch a movie, stopped and followed him back into the alley to offer what help they could.

As soon as the boys had gotten back home, they went into the bathroom to clean themselves up as much as they could. Despite the victory, they had both received a pretty bad beating. They washed their faces and started nursing the injuries on their faces to make them as un-prominent as possible. Richard left and went to get a bucket of ice that they could use to help with anything that might swell, while Jackson moistened his fingers and ran them back through his hair to make it less disheveled. When Richard came back, he had a troubled look on his face.

"He won't, will he?"

Jackson took a tissue, ran it under water and scrubbed the dry blood from under his nose and used another to stop the slow trickling that was still coming out of it. Glanced at his brother then looked back into the mirror.

"Who won't what?"

"Dad won't find out what happened, right?"

"He shouldn't… unless someone tells him."

"I don't want him to get angry at you. Ever since the…" Richard looked down. The skiing trip had been a bad experience for all of them. It had seemed to change Jackson somehow, and he hated reminding him of it, "the… you know… he seems to look for any reason at all to beat us. I can't imagine what he'd do if he found out about this…"

Jackson didn't want to imagine what his father would do if he found out about this. He just hoped and prayed that his father wouldn't find out at all.

A half an hour later, the boys almost looked normal again. Richard had a large bruise on his cheek, a slightly swollen lip, and his face seemed oddly naked without his glasses, but otherwise his face looked normal again. Jackson's left eye was darkening and his nose was red but he also looked normal other than that.

They went into their room and started their homework.

Two hours later, as dusk was turning to night, their father came home in a bad mood as usual. He was hardly through the door when the phone rang. He cursed, closed the door and picked it up off of its mount on the wall.

"Rippner residence. Greg speaking," he barked irritably.

"Mr. Rippner?" asked a female voice on the other side.

"Yes?" he sighed.

"We are calling about an incident that happened earlier today that one," a pause as the woman on the other side rustled some papers, "Harold Borden says your sons were heavily involved in."

Greg's grip on the phone tightened. His face became stony, "What about it?"

"According to Mr. Borden, your sons, particularly the one named…" another pause, "Jackson, ambushed him and a couple of his friends in a back alley today. Now, we have no witnesses save for Mr. Borden of course and your two sons to verify this story, but one of his friends…" a pause, "Robert Thompson, is in the emergency room as we speak and the other is dead."

"What!"

"Yes…" another pause. This woman was horrible with names, "Ian Schnobb was found dead at the scene where Borden said he and his friends were attacked, with his neck severely broken."

"And my boys killed him?"

"According to Harold Borden, yes, they did. Now, you realize that this is a very serious matter, and if you have a lawyer, I would suggest that you call him. The court date is November 23. Two weeks from now."

"Court date?"

"Yes, a trial has been arranged. Even if the Borden and Thompson families were going to let this go, someone has died. A trial is required."

"Fine. Fine. I'll call my lawyer," _but not before I have a little talk with my boys._

"I'm sorry about the inconvenience, Mr. Rippner."

"Yeah, sure. Good bye."

"Goodbye."

He hung up the phone, a look of great anger, and enjoyment thereof forming on his face. He liked to have a reason to punish his sons. Especially Jackson, the defiant little devil. If they really did kill that boy, they were just asking for it. He walked to the bottom of the stairs and looked up them.

"Jackson! Richard! Come down here!" he called, "We need to have a little talk."

Oh yes… he was going to enjoy this.

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Yes, in case you were wondering, I am, in fact, setting you up for the big climax. I'm not certain, but I think that the next chapter will be the last real chapter (there may be an epilogue, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it) Please review! 


	8. A Big Fight with Severe Consequences

Allrighty! Final chapter! (not including the epilogue of course) Let's see if I can't make it my best one yet.

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The very last of twilight ebbed away from the horizon, leaving the sky an endless, black abyss broken only by the faint glimmer of the stars. Not that any of the Rippner family could see the night sky. All the doors were closed and the blinds shut. When Greg Rippner called up the stairs for the two boys, Jackson knew that he had found out. There was no denying that sick, twisted pleasure he could hear in his father's voice. He was considering not responding, but what would that accomplish? He got off of his bed, and Richard did likewise. He was halfway through his doorway when he heard something he would never have expected; he paused to listen. It was his mother's muffled voice.

"What was the phone call about, Greg?"

There was a pause as their father apparently debated whether or not to tell her, "Well, all I can say right now is that our boys are in serious trouble." At this he raised his voice, "You two better get down here _now_!"

"Oh honey, can't we just have a quiet evening?" she pleaded, "Please?"

"Sandra, they killed a guy. Now, why don't you go back to the living room and have another drink. Maybe once I'm done, I'll even join you. We'll have a drink together."

There was no noise for a few seconds, then he heard the soft patter as his mother left Greg alone at the bottom of the stairs. Jackson was surprised. She never stood up for them, and though tonight was a pitiful attempt, it was more than normal by far. Was she sober?

"_Jackson! Richard!_ Get down here now!"

_Okay, dad. Don't burst a blood vessel. We're coming._ Jackson continued out the door and most of the way down the stairs and stopped. Richard followed him and stopped a few steps above him. They both looked down at their father, who seemed to be inspecting them like a drill sergeant, his hands firmly clasped behind his back.

"Where'd you get the shiner, Jackson?" he asked, almost casually, tapping beside his own eye for added clarification. "And Richard. Where are your glasses? Those cost a lot of money, you know."

They only watched him, waiting for him to get around to the reason he called them down.

"Were you two fighting earlier today?" he waited… not long, "Answer me!"

The last was so loud and abrupt that it startled Richard into a nod.

"I see…" he acted pensive, "Did you win?"

They looked at each other then back at their father. Jackson's eyes were dull and emotionless as he answered.

"You already know the answer to that."

"Why, so I do…" he said, "You know what else I know?" he didn't wait for an answer, "I know that in the course of the fight one or both of you killed a guy. What I want to know is which one of you did it." He was looking right at Jackson. Piercing blue into piercing blue.

"I did. Richard didn't do anything, dad." Jackson spat the last word out with disgust. "It was all me."

"Now, why doesn't that surprise me?" Greg raised his head and looked down his nose at Jackson in a look of silent triumph. "You know what we do to murderers in this house, Jackson?"

"I can imagine."

"You're right you can imagine. Now come here."

"I'm not a child anymore. I'm seventeen."

"Come here."

Jackson knew it was coming, but he didn't want it to come. He wasn't ready yet. He was supposed to instigate it, not his father. This wasn't how it had happened in his fantasies of exacting revenge on his father at all. Adrenaline started to pump into his blood, and his hands started shaking… but not from fear, never from fear. He slowly started to descend the stairs. His eyes became amazingly alert. They spotted even the slightest movement. He felt like he could anticipate anything. His father was probably going to throw him onto the couch again, take off his belt and begin beating him with it, exactly as he had seven years ago. But would he stop this time? Or perhaps his father would just grab him by the neck and throttle him right there. The possibilities were endless. His muscles tensed.

But when he got close enough, his father did something that took him completely off guard. Partially because close enough was not as close as Jackson thought it would be.

Jackson was still three stairs up and four or five feet away from his father when his father suddenly whipped his right arm around from behind his back. It was a blur and Jackson only had time to register that his father's arm seemed much longer than it should have been before pain exploded from the lower left portion of his ribcage. He cried out breathlessly as the force of the blow knocked him against the wall. He lost his balance and tumbled the short distance to the bottom of the stairs, groaning when he reached the bottom on his back at his father's feet. Richard screamed.

"No, Dad!"

Greg didn't even spare his younger son a glance, his eyes were fixed down at his older, who had his arms wrapped around his wounded side. Jackson looked up with pure hatred. _This was not how it was supposed to be. _His father raised the ski-pole clutched firmly in his right hand up until it rested on his shoulder a despicable grin on his face.

"I know you've had it out for me, son. Ever since the ski-slope incident. I saw it in your eyes. And now that I know you're capable of actually taking a life, I figure that you're too dangerous to stay in this house." He swung the pole down hard and hit him in the stomach. Jackson cried out again, and curled up on the floor, gasping loudly. It was getting increasingly hard to breathe without pain. Greg brought the pole up again.

"Stop it, Dad! Stop it!" Richard screamed.

Greg's alarming blue eyes looked up at Richard, and Richard recoiled. Those were not the eyes of a rational man. They were the eyes of insanity. Greg smiled lopsidedly at Richard and brought the pole down again on Jackson. Tears started leaking out of Richard's eyes, as he ran down the stairs, stayed as far away from his father as he could and ran for the kitchen.

Reality for Jackson seemed a bit surreal. His vision was clouding. His torso roared with an amount of pain he didn't know if he could bare much longer, and it looked like his father was about to hit him again. This time he raised his hands and managed to catch the ski-pole before it could strike him. Greg was caught off of his guard and his grip momentarily loosened. Jackson took full advantage of that moment and yanked it out of his father's grip, and swiping his father's feet out from under him with it. His father came down hard. The ski-pole flew out of his loose grasp and he lost track of it and focused mainly on getting to his feet again. When he finally managed, his father also had regained his footing, the two instantly went at each other's throats, each wanting to see each other dead as much as the other.

They got each other's throats, but in the end brute strength won out. Greg had a better grip on Jackson's thin neck and slammed him against the wall to help dislodge his son's long slender hands from his own throat. It worked. The world began to fade in and out of focus as Jackson felt his windpipe pinched shut. He tried to gasp, but only got an unsatisfying choke sound. He started clawing at his father's hand to try to get it to loosen and when that didn't work, he lashed out weakly with his hands, trying to hit something, anything. It was getting very hard to see, he could feel the blood rushing to his head and even sound was starting to fade. He could feel himself weakening and returned his hands to his father's hand to try to dislodge it. Consciousness was very thin.

His father watched with great satisfaction as his son's eyes turned bloodshot, as he tried to squirm out of his grip but failed to do so, as he tried to breathe but could only croak and choke, as his face turned red, and his face relaxed into loss of consciousness. But then he heard a screaming behind him. He turned around and saw his younger son running up to him with something in his hand. When Richard collided with him, he felt an amazingly terrible pain arise from his leg. He screamed and lost his grip on Jackson, who fell into a fit of coughing and gagging, with both hands up to his throat, taking in ragged, painful breaths. He looked down to see his younger son who came just above his elbow in height pulling a long knife from his leg and preparing to stab him with it again. All the while, Richard was screaming something that may have had something to do with killing Jackson, he couldn't understand him. He just knew that he had to take care of Richard, and fast before Jackson could regain his senses.

He had run into the kitchen and searched for the knife rack. He had found it shoved back in a corner and pulled out the longest one. On his way back, he had seen his mother curled up on the couch crying. He would have stopped to comfort her, but when he looked back down the hallway he saw that his dad with Jackson's throat firmly squeezed in his hand, and as much as he didn't want to fight, he knew that his father wouldn't let go until Jackson was dead. He had run down the hallway and buried the knife in the first non-lethal place he could get to, and here he was. His father grasped his reddish-brown hair and flung him back against the wall. Jackson looked up from his spot on the floor and watched in horror, thoroughly unable to do anything at the moment, as his father grabbed his little brother's arm and wrenched it until he dropped the knife. His father bent down and scooped up the knife and held it in front of Richard for a moment. Jackson started trying to struggle to his feet, but made it only to his knees. _No! _he wanted to shout_ Don't! Please! _But his raw throat would allow nothing more than a pathetic wheeze. Greg stabbed the twelve-year-old boy twice.

Jackson's eyes went wide in shock. Richard screamed, fell back against the wall and slid down to the ground. _No… _he thought_ this can't be happening. It's a nightmare, all this is a nightmare_. But the pain in his throat and ribs and his brother's blood spattered on the wall told him otherwise. Greg bent over the boy and pulled out the knife, receiving a quiet grunt from the boy. _You made a promise, Jackson. Repay everything. You'll have lied if you let dad turn around and stab you next. _He threw his shock, surprise, and sorrow aside and allowed all the rage he'd pent up over the past seven years to flow through him.

He got the rest of the way to his feet as his father started to turn around. His eyes were blazing as he went up behind his father, grabbed the hand with the knife and wrenched it around until his father's arm was on the verge of breaking and his father let go, he swiped up the knife and tucked it into his belt. Not time for that yet. He rammed his father's face against the wall, and his father rebounded back in a daze. Jackson shoved him down the hall into the kitchen and, finding the ski-pole his father had used to beat him, carried it with him down the hallway. His father was on his feet and looking confused. His eyes faltered even more when they met Jackson's. Greg knew then and there that stabbing Richard was the biggest mistake of his life. Not many people will ever see the unbridled rage in Jackson Rippner's eyes, but the few who do, don't normally live much longer afterward. Greg Rippner saw it in the moment his older son swung back the ski-pole like a bat and used it to break his left knee.

The pain was immense, but nothing was worse than seeing the complete hatred in his son's terrible blue eyes. Jackson brought the pole around the other way and swung it down to shatter Greg's right knee. Greg screamed, and though in all of Jackson's fantasies, he had been smiling when his father screamed out in agony, no smile found its home on Jackson's face. No genuine smile would ever find its way to his face again. Instead tears streamed down his face as he wept silently for his brother and beat his father twice for every blow he'd ever landed on Richard. Finally, he pulled out the knife, crouched over his battered, bleeding, crippled father, and held the knife in front of his father's dazed blue eyes.

"This is what happens," Jackson said in a tear-clogged voice that obviously took a lot of strength to control, "to people who take my little brother away from me."

He flipped the knife so the blade pointed downward and stabbed his father four times with it. Crying out with each blow. His father gurgled and blood streamed out of his mouth. Jackson made his way to his dying brother in the hall. Richard opened his blue-grey eyes and hovered them on Jackson's face before closing them again.

"He's dead, Richard." Jackson said, cradling his brother's head and crying, "I kept my promise to you, and paid him back."

Richard opened his eyes again, gave Jackson a weak smile and strained to say, "then you need to run away, Jackson. Run, and don't come back to this house ever. Go now…"

Jackson understood why he should run, but he didn't want to leave his brother.

"Go!" Richard managed.

Jackson let go of his brother, got up and headed for the kitchen. He picked up the phone and quickly called an ambulance with the slim hopes that maybe his brother might be saved. He hung up and felt a new sense of urgency sweep over him. Before he left, he opened an end-table drawer in the living room, only briefly noticing that his mother was still there crying, and pulled out a small revolver they kept for emergencies. His father gurgled again, and when Jackson glanced at him, he was startled to see his father looking directly at him. His gaze faltered and he ran out the back door, off the back porch and into the woods. He ran for a minute or two before stopping, falling to his knees and crying loudly. He was starting to get himself under control when he heard someone call his name from back in the direction of the house. He stood up straight, gripped the pistol, flicked off the safety, and looked back in that direction.

"Jaaaaaaaacksoooooon." He started to breathe more heavily. Surely his father can't have still been alive after four stab-wounds. He heard footsteps crunching in the thick layer of leaves, coming toward him. He cocked back the hammer and raised the gun to his shoulder.

A figure broke through the trees and stopped. His eyes went wide when he saw his father, staring at him, grinning. Blood was flowing out of his mouth and onto his shirt, from which the knife still protruded. His legs were horrible tangled things, but he was running on them anyway. Jackson was terrified. This can't have been real. He aimed the gun at the monstrosity.

"Stay back!" he cried out.

"Jackson, wait," the thing said in a gurgly voice and advanced slowly, "Please put the gun down."

"No! Stay back!"

"Jackson?" he didn't stop.

Jackson pulled the trigger and the revolver discharged with a deafening bang. Jackson's aim was good, but his mouth dropped open in shock and self-revulsion when he saw who he had really shot.

Sandra Rippner held her hands to the red mark, blooming between her breasts. She looked at him with sadness and confusion, and fell to the terrain on her face, dead.

Jackson threw the gun on the ground and looked at his own hands for a moment. He took a step towards his mother's corpse, then doubled over and vomited. After that, he straightened up and ran until he could run no more, never looking back. When he reached a clearing he looked up at the starry sky and screamed with anguish.

What had he become?

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There, how'd you like it? I know… the last chapter was fairly long, but hopefully it lived up to your expectations. Please review! (and remember there is an epilogue) 


	9. Epilogue

Here's the epilogue. Hope you guys like it!

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Several days later, early in the morning, Arthur Watson walked into the park. He had a newspaper rolled up under one arm and a McDonald's bag filled with his breakfast balled up in his hand. A hot coffee occupied his other hand. He walked over to his favorite picnic table, set his things down on it, and sat. He had spent all of the past two days sitting at this table and waiting, occasionally taking a stroll so that he didn't raise eyebrows. He was starting to think that the target would never show up. His organization had its statistics, and normally they weren't wrong but this was ridiculous. 

Several hours passed and still no sign of the target. Arthur looked at his watch. Still only eight. He has to come out eventually. No problem. Besides, orders are orders. It wasn't until noon that someone who matched the target's description appeared.

Arthur had seen many things in his line of work, and not much surprised him, but the pathetic being that came out of the woods adjoining the park caught him completely off guard. It was a boy... a teenager from the looks of him. Maybe sixteen or seventeen. He looked positively terrible. His face had taken on an awful pallor, and his bright blue eyes looked withdrawn and haunted. He was very thin, too thin almost, and he had dark bruises on his neck and a black eye. His clothes and face were dirty, his face smeared from what must have been a torrent of tears, and brown leaves were clinging to his dark hair. He looked like he still would be crying but had run out of juice. The boy looked dazed, like he didn't quite know where he was or what was going on around him.

His appearance matched that of the target exactly.

When the boy finally staggered his way to another picnic bench and sat wearily down, Arthur stood and made his way casually over to where the boy sat. When he was a few feet away, the boy became aware of his presence and glanced up at him, he looked like he was trying to hold back tears. Arthur stood next to the bench across the table from him.

"This spot taken?" he asked.

The boy shook his head without looking at him again.

"If you don't mind my saying," Arthur said in a conversational voice, "You don't look so good."

The boy looked up at him and just stared for a moment then snickered briefly through his nose. "I wouldn't be surprised if you're right." _My heavens, it sounds like he hasn't used his voice in ages,_ Arthur thought.

"What's your name?"

"Jackson. What's yours?"

"Arthur. Pleasure to meet you." He looked Jackson up and down. "You hungry?"

Jackson seemed to think about it. Arthur couldn't blame him, if what he'd been told was true, then Jackson Rippner would be out of his mind to even put a little trust in someone so soon after meeting him. Finally, Jackson nodded.

"You look hungry. Here," he acted like he just thought of it, "I just got this from the McDonald's over there five minutes ago. You look like you could use it more than I could." He set his second McDonald's bag for the day on the table. Jackson looked at it dully for several seconds, took hold of it, and tore hungrily into it. He was halfway through the hamburger within when Arthur started to speak again.

"I know what happened a few nights ago, Jackson," he stated casually.

Jackson stopped amid bite. He looked at Arthur with the terror of an animal that thinks it's been cornered and slowly lowered the hamburger to the flattened bag on the table. "What do you mean?" he asked hastily.

"Relax, Jackson. I'm not the police, and I'm not here to arrest you or anything." Jackson looked confusedly and untrustingly at him. "In fact, I'm here to lay a proposal for you."

"A proposal?"

"Yes, one I think you might like."

Jackson carefully considered, then after a moment, "I'm listening."

"I'm a member of an organization called Sillhouette, an organization that not a whole lot of people really know about. You may read about our doings in the newspapers or see it on TV, but they call us terrorists." Jackson tensed. "Now, now, calm down, Rippner." At this Jackson's face turned alert and unfriendly.

"I don't recall telling you my last name."

"You didn't have to. My organization has branches reaching the most remote areas and we're looking for fresh talent anywhere we can get it. When we heard about you killing the Schnobb boy and taking out two other boys twice your size... well, let's just say that you got put on our list of interesting new possibilities really fast."

"Why would I want to join a group of terrorists?"

Arthur was slightly annoyed at being called a terrorist but tried not to let it show, "What else can you do? Your whole family's dead, you might as well sentence yourself to life imprisonment if you ever show your face in your school or house again, for the past few days you've been wandering around the forest grieving and starving. The way I see it, what I'm offering is the best choice you've got right now."

Jackson thought about it some more, "What would I be doing in such an organization as this?"

Arthur shrugged, "At first, I suppose you'd be stuck with the little jobs. Small time assassinations for businessmen who want to get themselves just a little higher on the ladder, you know. Jobs where you get your hands dirty. Then, as you progress, you get to be in charge of a few jobs until before you know it, you're masterminding them."

"And what if I say no?"

"Then I kill you, dump you in the woods near your mother, and make it look like wild animals did it." Jackson's blue eyes went wide for a moment, and Arthur looked at him with an amused smile on his lips. "So what do you say?"

"Well I don't really have much of a choice, now do I?"

"Great! You won't regret your decision, Mr. Rippner. Come. My car is parked a block away. I'll explain the details on the way."

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Well, here it be. Congratulate me. I just finished a fan fiction for the first time ever! Tell me what you thought of it. Review, please:) 


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